today was the day of the pissy customers

first up, i made a mistake. i won't deny it.
i screwed up one bit.
details are a bit much to spit out, but... yeah.

anyway, i went out back to look for something for my pissed off customer, praying damn hard we had it cause he was SO ANGRY.

we didn't have what he wanted.

...and i knew i was so screwed.

i ran into jason and yolanda (workmates) on the way out, and we had the saddest conversation.

J: (to me) did you find your thing?
K: no. i didn't... i'm so screwed aye.
J: yeah. he's really angry.
K: i don't wanna go back out there. i really don't.
Y: you wanna swap? this woman... i've been with her for an hour, and she can't even speak english properly.
K: really? (super hopeful) swap?
J: nah man. her dude is really angry. even i wouldn't swap with her.
Y: seriously, i've been with her for so long.. she asked for a manager, so Jemma pretended to be my manager and told her we can't do that. but she's still... ugh.
J: yeah, but you really don't want to take that guy.
K: yeah, i can't do that to you. he's... ohcrap. i'm so dead.
J: ok, ok guys. *does the hand pile up thing* all for one?
ALL: and one for all.
J: let's do this.

then we walked out together, and faced hell.

i saw Yolanda's customer and ok, her english sucked, and her face was set in a permanent grimace. not fun. and she started scolding Yo even before she'd gotten within speaking distance.

but my guy definitely took the cake.
there was a point where everyone nearby just stopped and stared at us.

by the end of it i felt totally defeated. i stood there all while he was complaining to my manager (half of it was about me), just so i could apologize to him properly. and he didn't freaking give a shit.

forget anger.
forget embarrassment.

i just wanted to cry.

what would you choose?

i read the newspaper at rick's today. i also watched the news. it upsets me. remember Knut? he's attracting about 30000 people to Zoo Berlin everyday now. but in a sad twist, Yan Yan, the 22 year old female giant panda at the zoo has died. some reckon she got freaked out by the crowds drawn to the zoo. but the zoo, of course, denies it. but she's old-ish. could've been anything. poor Bao Bao [her mate] is 27, and as of today, all alone.

on a lighter note. some chinese gangster dude sent a video to the news, threatening to kill some other chinese dude. he sent it to the NEWS - no mask, no hi-tech voice disguising thing. just a video.
very smart oh.
read for yourself. i dont want to write anything that might induce a video threat of my own XD.

another thing i read in the paper that made me really sad was an article about kids in Romania whose parents work in other countries. see, these parents think their working abroad is ultimately for the good of the children, but they don't see that the kids would rather be poor and have mum and dad at home, than have a mobile [seriously] and eat aunt's cooking everyday.

the saddest part is that these kids kill themselves. they're 9, 11, and they're committing suicide cause they'd rather die than live without mum and dad.

this little guy's parents work in italy. he and his brother are model students but they're quiet. in fact, the only time they light up is when they talk about their parents.

there is seriously something wrong with us when we can't see that life is more than anything else you can find in the world. it's an argument we've heard many times, and one you're going to hear again.

yeah, you need to work to eat. people who think love and happiness transcends all are idiots because no matter how much you love him, you're still gonna die if you don't eat. then your love is wasted anyway so yes, money is important; but only to a certain extent.

the reverse side of that is that money can't buy love or happiness. and when you die you can't take money with you, but you will always have the intrinsic value of having lived and loved.

it's not like these people aren't earning anything in romania. it's just not a lot. but in going away to make more money to give their kids a better life, the strive for money is sucking any chance for life at all away.

it's money vs life.

i know what i'd choose.

before bed

a total of 40% of our semester mark for physics goes to a practical where we have to build a small scale solar desalination unit that can distill at least 70mls of pure water in one and a half hours.

me, nicole, and zhenya made one such unit. a lot of hard work [on mine and nicole's part] went into building that stupid 40.5x42 unit [it was supposed to be 40x40, but we can't saw straight].

the testing was yesterday. you know God has a sense of humour when it's been 40 degrees 4 days in a row and on the day you really need the heat, He gives you 27 degrees.

our baby didn't collect anything for a long time. it was so painful watching all those little droplets that just refused to gather into our container. but by the end of the morning, we had about 5 mls of water and some serious sunburn. we were so proud of our 5mls and we rushed it over to get measured and tested for purity.

only to find our container had a leak.

man, we almost cried.

anyway, get a load of this drawing, made by Joe. he's damn good with his pencil and paper. the nice thing is he also draw everyone "ten times hotter than they are in real life", as will was heard to comment.

click to enlarge

mm.. anyway. it's karina's birthday today and she's damn happy. karina, TWO YEARS TO GO!!

one of the neighbours is having a party. loud music, lotsa noise. they are so obviously drunk. case in point, someone just said "YEEEEEE HAWWWWWW" really really loudly.

the weirdest thing said to me this week: you know, you're like my twin, only female.
the evil-est: you're so mean! i can be mean too. SHORTY!!!
the sweetest: i've already missed you for yonks, i can wait a few more minutes.

onetwothreefourfive

the greatest thing happened to me at school today. i went to the toilet, and the flush decided to play a game with me. you see, it wasn't having a very good day, so as a twisted form of stress relief, when i flushed the toilet, it splashed it's innards all over me.

the best part is, everybody cleared a path for me to the sink after they heard how eloquently i was handling the situation.

i need to get pictures off people!!! jess, nicole, emily, can you hear me?


river cruise last week. i have no idea what i was drinking, which might explained that look i have on my face. and what's with the finger action man. and pictures are misleading. i'm actually the biggest one out of the three of us.

anyway, intro calc test yesterday wasn't worth stressing over. chem test today was pretty ok too. i'm annoyed that i'm so careless though. it's really something i'll have to work on. but tze-chiang. WHOA. that guy is damn pro. top marks for everything: G&T, intro calc, and chemistry.

bastard.

mo, don't be depressed. it just wasn't your day. see, you're being mentioned again. woot. we all really do love you. we just don't wanna tell you. because then you'll get so overwhelmed by all this love-for-da-mo [as you call it] that you'll fall over. so be happy yeah? as someone said to me the other night, "chin up"!

ngh, back to the homework.

stuuuupidddddd

we were inundated with world war propaganda in english today. it's brainwashing i tell you. good thing i slept. missed a huge part of it. at one point, i propped myself up - elbows on table, face on hands - in an attempt to appear awake while actually sleeping... unfortunately, as i nodded off, my elbows slipped, and i nearly stacked my face on the table.

NOT COOL.

lining up outside chinese...
tian: HAHA, kimberley got hit by bread.
kim: SHUTTUP. it was bloody painful.
everyone else: huh?

let me tell you what happened.

i finished my lunch, and i was gliding elegantly towards the rubbish bin to dispose of my little ball of gladwrap - because i'm so environmentally conscious, you see - and just as i reach the bin, something whacks me on the side of my face.

i turn to see the offending weapon falling to the ground [this is a testament of how fast i can turn my head] and there's this weird-looking guy approaching the weapon. i glare at him. as in, i gave him an iflookscouldkill you'dbeflatasroadkill look. to his credit, all he said was "sorry. was supposed to go into the bin".

bloody idiot. trying to play basketball with bread and a bin. pft. for the record, the shot wouldn't have been close to getting in. so much for the kobe bryant wannabe.

yes, i was attacked by a piece of bread. a piece of bread that's either gone mouldy, or just has very weird raisins.

i dont want to know.

short one

did you guys ever do that skipping thing where two people are turning the rope and one person is jumping in the middle?

may, jess and i did that in PE today. they were turning. i was skipping. they turned. i skipped. they didn't turn high enough. i got hit in the eyes by the rope.

let me tell you, getting hit square in the eyes by a skipping rope moving at who knows how many metres and hour is NOT FUN. in fact, it's actually rather painful.